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Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

reuters.com

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Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#921

Post by CamperBob2 »

bluetwo wrote: post #618
UncleOxidant wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do nothing and it melts down and destroyers the globe. The whole globe? Gonna need a citation for that. It won't be fun for Europe or Russia if it melts down, but destroy the whole globe seems a little hyperbolic.

Yes, a giant cooling system dug underneath the reactor after the accident takes water from a nearby river and pumps it out to a cooling pond where it evaporates. This keeps the concrete from melting and the core contained. Here is a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency: https://www-pub.iaea.org/iaeameetings/IEM4/29Jan/Voitsekhovy... (Poor english but good diagrams)

Nothing in that document describes a planetary-scale disaster.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#922

Post by zahma »

dudeinhawaii wrote: post #428

I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization? Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation an…

Yes, you’re describing political science/ international relations theory of realism. In nature, there is chaos and organization of that chaos happens through real force. A country can’t trust others and must protect its interests. A hegemon imposes its desires on the world because it has hard power. Until relatively recently, the US was considered unipolar after the demise of the USSR. (I suspect Putin welcomes the challenge, along with China who both want to assert their world views.) Anyway, fast forward through the millennia, and the two principle hard powers within Waltzian realism is that military force can only be minimized through economic weaponry. By now, it feels like the US has sanctioned Russia so much and for so long that it should be destitute. Somehow Russia’s central bank amassed $600 billion USD in the run up to their foray into Ukraine.[1] I don’t see how further sanctions will change this, but detonating plans on Nord Stream 2 and cutting Russia out from other markets where it sends its oil would be effective, though probably not in the short term. The kicker there is which politician wants to explain why energy prices are increasing even more to a beleaguered country that just wants to put Covid behind it. France has elections in months, and Macron is not eager to see the Yellow Vests reinvigorated with real support to undo his bid to oversee the European Union during his second term.

I agree that it feels unlikely for NATO to draw a red line and start mobilizing troops, matériel, and missiles to reflect a posture. Everything at this point in to the invasion is meant as deterrence. This simply isn’t enough to combat the playground bully. I’ll stop here and just say that in international relations, game theory can be employed to understand this dynamic of brinksmanship. In the worst case of asymmetrical information, lack of communication, and paranoia about the madman leading the opposing side, all out war can be conceived of — even if it’s ultimately called off. Think Cuban Missile Crisis.

1-https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/24/russian-cen...

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#923

Post by hutrdvnj »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #405
sofixa wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days,he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukraine will essentially (if not effectively) annex itself to Russia I wouldn't be so certain. I don't think Ukrainians would just c…

Genuine question: how much does Russian public opinion matter? It's not like Russia has free elections. Iran's Islamic Republic seems pretty secure despite low public approval. I'm sure public opinion is important, but I don't understand its role in a dictatorship.

If Putin would be seen as a brutal murderer by many russians, then chance are that there are some who could try to assassinate him, like there were many assassination attempts to Hitler.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#924

Post by toyg »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #881
afterburner wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worth noting that Taiwan is in a similar situation with respect to China. They are being threatened with invasion, but have no formal military alliances with nuclear powers. Judging from the U.S.'s reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. would do little more than apply sanctions if China invaded Taiwan. Not unless the U.S. has special feelings for Taiwan that it does not have for Ukraine at any rate. Thi…

>Not to mention a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be almost trivially easy for the US to stop. It's an island, and the US has naval and air supremacy. This was maybe true in 1996, but less so today (at least from what I've heard). China is rapidly approaching naval parity with the US, and they have enough land-based anti-ship missiles to deny most surface vessels access to the Taiwan straight. That's not even consid…

Okinawa and Mageshima bases are there for a reason, something like 300-400m from Taiwan. For military purposes, Japan is effectively an extension of the US border.

That's one of the great innovations of the US military model. Ensuring air domination allows them to effectively expand control by simply placing bases. Britain had done that in the past with naval forces but their logistic challenges are more complicated when it comes to defending supply lines.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#925

Post by CamperBob2 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #312
krzat wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shutting down atomic power in Germany was such a brilliant move.

> Shutting down atomic power in Germany was such a brilliant move. What's done is done. Europe has enough wind potential to power the world [1]. Add solar [2], batteries, transmission, pumped hydro, remaining operational nuclear, and electrify everything (EVs, heat pumps, etc). Fill the remainder with LNG shipments from the US in the short term [3]. It's a national defense/security/sovereignty issue now to get off of…

Wind power is useful but not directly comparable to gas or nuclear, for obvious reasons. You can't store the wind or the electricity generated from it.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#926

Post by me_me_me »

pydry wrote: post #919
stdbrouw wrote: post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which, as the OP points out, were hollow words and the Membership Action Plan that would have been the first step to joining NATO never got off the ground. Two minutes on Wikipedia!

It was stalled under Yanukovych. NATO reiterated their commitment to it in Brussels in April 2021. Assuming Russia did nothing it would have happened eventually.

Can we acknowledge the hypocrisy of the whole thing.

The reason NATO exists is because small countries in europe were afaid of USSR, and nowdays Russia.

Nato is defensive pact, as such there is no threat coming from nato to any non nato country.

Now a independent neighbor of Russia is trying to join nato to not be bullied by russia. Russia is not liking it because they will not be able to fuck with Ukraine any more and not because they are afraid of anything.

This war is a proof why Ukraine was 100% justified to seek nato membership not other way around.

We should stop victim blaming Ukraine.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#927

Post by herbst »

KronisLV wrote: post #869
hbarka wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> member states like Germany would have vetoed [Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership] Why is this often mentioned? What is Germany’s rationale and is this still a certainty? Perhaps these comments were more closely related to Schröder (because gas pipeline) but certainly a different generation now. edit: France and Germany were the two opposed countries.

Would also like to know this, because Germany being on Russia's side feels a bit... out of nowhere? A bit odd? Not something you'd expect. I mean, i can understand some controversy around the actions of Turkey because of a variety of reasons, but Germany?

There are no sides for some. Swiss media is portraing all involved parts as crazy war lords. There is no Russia is bad, NATO is just saving the day narrative here.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#928

Post by pydry »

me_me_me wrote: post #926
pydry wrote: post #919

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was stalled under Yanukovych. NATO reiterated their commitment to it in Brussels in April 2021. Assuming Russia did nothing it would have happened eventually.

Can we acknowledge the hypocrisy of the whole thing. The reason NATO exists is because small countries in europe were afaid of USSR, and nowdays Russia. Nato is defensive pact, as such there is no threat coming from nato to any non nato country. Now a independent neighbor of Russia is trying to join nato to not be bullied by russia. Russia is not liking it because they will not be able to fuck with Ukraine any more a…

I remember Putin expressing his extreme displeasure at NATO's intervention in Libya precisely because the implicit threat was "you're next, Putin". It was mostly ignored by the west but it was clear how furious he was at America and Hillary specifically.

I dont see any reason why NATO working to destabilize Libya that passes muster that doesnt apply equally well to Russia. The idea that it was acting defensively is a farce. A conservative assessment is that Libya is a model for what they are aiming for in Russia in the long term.

Ukraine is the victim and Russia is the aggressor but the west essentially gave a stick to a child and encouraged it to poke the bear before running away and hiding behind a rock.

We could have prevented this.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#929

Post by dmitriid »

paganel wrote: post #866
marttt wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former journalist from Estonia here. Our media republished a 1994 speech given by late president of Estonia Lennart Meri at a banquet in Hamburg, Germany. Vladimir Putin, a then internationally unknown politician from St Petersburg, was also among the listeners -- and demonstratively walked out of the room during Meri's speech, as reported by Deutsche Welle [1]. Quoting DW: "On February 25, 1994, Putin was also in at…

To be fair Estonia's treatment of its Russian community fed right into Putin's propaganda machine, when you still have this: "7.3% are "persons with undetermined citizenship"" (to quote wikipedia [1]) ~30 years after the break-up of the USSR then you know something was not done right on Estonia's part when it came to really integrating the Russian community. The same partially goes for the condition of the Russian co…

Key word: propaganda.

While statelessness in the Baltic countries is a very controversial issue, I don't believe it'sas bad as people are making it out to be.

The absolute vast majority of those people don't care about the situation: they can work, they can travel through the EU and other countries, and they can play the victim card.

As a good example, Nils Ušakovs was the mayor of Riga, and his parents were stateless (and hi mother probably still is [1]). So its not like statelessness affects people other than the actual person (and the degree to which it affects them is very debatable).

[1] https://voxeurop.eu/en/a-russian-in-charge-in-riga/

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#930

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

mcv wrote: post #853
beloch wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Poland is. If Russia attacks a member of NATO then all members of NATO are obligated to join in defence militarily . Russia can attack non-NATO countries and intimidate NATO into doing nothing, but to attack a NATO member would automatically bring the whole alliance into the war. The whole point of alliances like NATO is to prevent countries from being picked off by a bully the way U…

The US and Russia did promise to defend Ukraine against nuclear powers in exchange for Ukraine giving their nuclear weapons to Russia in 1994. Now Russia, a nuclear power and one of the signatories to that treaty, broke it by attacking Ukraine, and the US broke it by not defending Ukraine from that aggression, because Russia is waving its nukes around as a threat. The big lesson that the US and Russia are teaching Uk…

>Russia is waving its nukes around as a threat.

Really? Has Putin actually said anything about nuclear weapons in the context of this war?

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